Scientific psychology cannot make the majority of mankind happy

During the nineteenth century Science as a methodological approach to phenomena became the dominant western epistemology. An idea is to be accepted only if it is observable, verifiable and preferably replicable in laboratories. Since much of religion is written in metaphors religious ideas could not be subjected to scientific verification. Thus, by the 1890s psychology came into being.

Psychology aimed at accepting only those ideas about human nature, thinking and behavior that can be observed to be objective and are verifiable as true.

Psychology began with Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic conjectures in the 1890s but later became more rigorous as folks like Ivan Pavlov, John Watson and others insisted on empiricism.

By the end of the twentieth century psychology was predominantly focused on neuroscience, explaining human thinking and behavior in biological, chemical and physical terms. Thinking and behavior are seen as the dance of neurotransmitters and electrical ions. The nature and behavior of neurons, brain cells, were subjected to intense studies.

This turn of events is good for the discipline of psychology needs to become scientific instead of the mythology it began out as under the great myth maker, Sigmund Freud. There is no place in the brain called id, ego and superego; those are mere mental constructs and do not exist in reality.

A science of human behavior must be based on actual human behavior not on mythologies about human behavior.

These elements are different arrangements of sub atomic particles, electrons, protons and neutrons. The three particles are made of quarks (in the case of protons and neutrons) and photons.

Ultimately, all elements, atoms and particles are made from the original light, photon that came out of nowhere during the big bang 13.8 billion years ago to start the universe of energy and matter.

Our bodies live, give or take, 120 years and die. When they die the elements in them decompose (the chemical bonds holding them together break). Our bodies decay and return to what they are made of.

What is today your bodies will tomorrow be atoms in trees, other people, animals, planets, stars just as your present body is made of atoms from all over the universe.

In everyday language, our bodies came from star dust and return to dust. (Have you seen a dead and decaying human body? It smells worse than feces; it is unsightly!).

If we accept science we must conclude that the human body is nothing more than the sum of the elements that make it up. Since those elements came from photons, and that came from nothing, the human body is nothing.

People are, in effect, nothing. They are no more important than trees, animals, sand or anything else in the universe. People are not special at all (but everywhere they want to seem special).

THE REJECTION OF NOTHINGNESS AND THE DESIRE FOR SOMETHINGNESS, FOR IMPORTANCE

In childhood most human beings recognize that their bodies are nothing. Children are more likely to reach this conclusion if they are sickly and or have seen dead and decaying animals and human bodies. If a child sees a decaying human body he must conclude that human bodies have absolutely no worth and value and are nothing.

Some children, appreciating the worthlessness of their bodies, reject their bodies and selves based on bodies. They use their thinking, mentation, cognition to construct a different self apart from body. They use their thinking to posit purely mentally derived ideal selves that are permanent, eternal and changeless, selves that would not die; subsequently they try to become the ideal selves. Alas, such selves are imaginary and no amount of wishing would make them become true.

Ideal selves are mere products of wishful thinking; people's bodies and egos would still die and disappear from existence.

WHO IS THE CONSTRUCTOR OF THE SELF?

What is the nature of the force that looked at the body and rejected it and desires an imaginary ideal self? What is the self that compensates for ones perceived lack of worth and power with neurotic and or psychotic worth and power?

If we accepted contemporary scientific psychology and accepted that all we are, are bodies that would die, rot and disappear from existence we must accept that we are worthless.

Many people probably would not be satisfied with that view of us as nothing. Happiness and peace of mind probably would not exist in a mind that accepted that it is not different from animals and grasses.

A part of us tell us that we are something more than our bodies and insist on asking us: how can you deny your real self, spirit, and identify with body, with shit, and expect to be happy?

That part of us says that we can only be happy if we accept our true self as spirit. That part of us tells us that we are wasting our time with scientific psychology that tells us that all we are bodies; it tells us that secular psychotherapy that tells us that all we are is feces, the human body, cannot satisfy us.

ATHEISM

The atheist denies the existence of God and does not look forward to life after death. The atheist wants to make the most of this world and then die and disappear into oblivion. The atheist in Europe works for socialism for it is the best government that guarantees the best life for all people on earth. American atheists are too chicken to fight for the best life for all people; they accept the oppressive capitalist system that makes living good for a few and bad for many.

CAN A PERSON BE HAPPY WITHOUT BELIEF IN AFTER LIFE?

The purpose of psychotherapy is to get people to understand and accept themselves and thereafter live happy and peaceful lives.

Can scientific psychology that tells people that all they are, are bodies, bodies that will die and smell worse than shit get people to be happy and live fully?

Perhaps, a few atheists can live with the notion that they are feces but would the majority of mankind accept that thesis, assuming that it is true, and there is no evidence that it is true beyond mere assertion that there is no life after death.

Psychotherapy that is based on godlessness and no life after death cannot make the broad majority of the people happy. This is the reason why psychotherapy is a waste of time. People no longer bother with psychotherapists and instead head to those who present themselves as informed on spiritual matters.

People need hope that this world is not all there is to their lives for them to live happily and peacefully.

The question is this: is there life after we die? Does consciousness transcend physical death? These are areas that we ought to be studying instead of mouthing mere assertions made by atheists without evidence to prove them.

BUDDHISM'S MEDITATION

But what is our real self? To find out what our real self is Hinduism and Buddhism ask us to meditate. They ask us to remove all received ideas in our minds and have no ideas in our minds. They say that in a mind without presuppositions and preconceptions of what we are that a different self-dawns on it.

To know about the real self-one must negate the false self that one currently sees as who one is. Hinduism says that in meditation we escape from our dense matter based world and first see a light world and ultimately enter pure consciousness where people are not in forms but are points of light in a sea of infinite points of light.

After that experience, called self-realization and enlightenment one return to living in our current world of dense matter but henceforth do so with lack of identification and attachment to the world hence is relatively happy and peaceful. Now, one knows that one is spirit and as spirit is eternal, changeless and permanent.

GNOSTIC CHRISTIANITY

The Gnostic Christian believes that our world of dense matter forms is evil and that there is a world of light forms (if we do have light forms are dinosaurs still in light forms and if so what for). Ultimately, there is a world of formless light, which is said to be our real home.

The Gnostic says that we do not die and that we are not in bodies; Gnostics say that we are behind bodies and use bodies as masks and look through those masks and see ourselves as bodies.

Body masks do die; since folks feel identified with body they fear that they would die with the death of their bodies. But in truth people are not in bodies and therefore do not die with the death of their bodies.

CONCLUSION

Scientifically, we do not know enough to make conclusive statements about whether there is life after death or not. However, we do know for sure that atheism merely makes assertions on there being no life after death, assertions based on superficial understanding of science.

Since we do not know whether there is life after death or not we must continue studying the subject. One should not say that life after death exists out of fear of death, finitude and oblivion. Fear cannot be the basis for the truth; only direct evidence gives us the truth.

In the here and now world, it seems to me that people cannot accept the verdict that all they are, are bodies and be happy; therefore, secular psychotherapy does not seem able to make people happy. Nor are people's happiness supposed to be based on magical thinking; it would be magical thinking if there is no life after death to say that it exists. Only demonstrated facts should be accepted.

The fact is that we do not know whether life exists after death; not knowing people must be left to make independent decisions as to whether they believe that life exists after death or not.

Ozodi Thomas Osuji is from Imo State, Nigeria. He obtained his PhD from UCLA. He taught at a couple of Universities and decided to go back to school and study psychology. Thereafter, he worked in the mental health field and was the Executive Director of two mental health agencies. He subsequently left the mental health environment with the goal of being less influenced by others perspectives, so as to be able to think for himself and synthesize Western, Asian and African perspectives on phenomena. Dr Osuji’s goal is to provide us with a unique perspective, one that is not strictly Western or African but a synthesis of both. Dr Osuji teaches, writes and consults on leadership, management, politics, psychology and religions. Dr Osuji is married and has three children; he lives at Anchorage, Alaska, USA.